This isn’t really new news since the Duke Smart Home opened almost a year ago, but I thought I would pass along images and information of the home because it’s another compelling example of the livability of smart green design. Realistically, the 6000 sf Duke Smart Home is more of a dormitory than a house, with roughly 10 students living in it at any given time, but it has at least a modicum of credibility with LEED Platinum certification already in hand. The students, in addition to experimenting with various green projects and modifications to the home, are ambassadors that conduct tours and explain its sustainable features. This active involvement between students, faculty, The Home Depot, and other sponsors, has created what seems to be abundant opportunities for everyone involved with the Duke Smart Home.

Plus, as evident in the following images and video, this live in laboratory has quite the considerable list of green features:

Recycling The Past is a vintage/antique building supply store located in New Jersey. The store offers a wonderful variety of products ranging from mantles to hardware to doors, all of which may be viewed online. Two of my favorite products are the sinks and the tiles. There are nine pages of stunning tiles in a range of shapes, colors, and styles. The collection of decorative tiles is incredible; some of them are amazingly detailed.

If you’ve been listening to the chatter on prefab and thought: "What’s the big deal with prefab homes?" or "Why would anyone ever want to own a prefab?", now’s your chance to find out. In his most recent update from A Prefab Project, Chris dropped a link to his shiny new website for Lost River Modern, a prefab cabin in Lost River, West Virginia. And as you can tell from the images on the new website, Lost River Modern is quite incredible to look at. Designed by Resolution: 4 Architecture, creators of the original Dwell Home, Lost River Modern is the first and only res4 home available for guests. You can (and probably should) rent the place and completely chill out. I see some slots are already filled up, so if you’re interested in testing the prefab waters on the East Coast, you better get on it quick.

Forget the fact that I lived in Japan and absolutely love its culture, I didn’t know that Toyota had a homes unit. And they’ve been in the business of making homes for over twenty years! The company adapts automobile manufacturing technology to build stylish, earthquake-resistant homes for sale within Japan. The Toyota Homes unit accounts for only .5% of the company’s $262 billion in annual sales, and Toyota would like to beef that up a little bit. Plus, with the roll-out of the plug-in hybrid beginning in 2010 (remember all that discussion here about solar homes and plug-in hybrids replacing gas stations?), Toyota would like to do more with their environmentally-friendly, prefabricated homes.